I am in you: Finding the Holy in a hazelnut

"Mystical Union," by Wayne Forte

Soon we reach the end of Eastertide. The lessons today are Acts 17:22-31, 1 Peter 3:13-22, and John 14:15-21. Here is my sermon for today:

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Happy Easter. 

Yes it is still Easter – Easter Day came so late this year that it may feel like Pentecost will come on the Fourth of July. 

But I assure you, we are coming to the end of Easter; only one more Sunday after today remains in the sequence of the seven Sundays that are Eastertide, and there is still so much more to tell of the story. 

So today the architects of our lectionary crowd us with lessons densely packed with layers of theological meaning, and they are giving it to us by the truckload. 

We get Saint Paul standing at the gates of the Acropolis teaching the Athenians to not worship idols made by human hands, but to search for the divine “not far from each one of us.” 

Next, we get this curious letter from Peter talking of how Jesus has gone to make a “proclamation to the spirits in prison.” 

Finally, the gospel of John gives us this flashback dialogue at the Last Supper between Jesus and his disciples wherein Jesus tells them he is about to leave them but will come back in a different way. 

“I will not leave you orphaned,” he says. 

“This is the Spirit of Truth…You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.” And he goes on, “On that day you will know that I am in my Father and you in me, and I in you.” 

What does this avalanche of words mean? 

I must admit to you that I have bounced around inside these lessons all week wondering where to come out in speaking to you this morning. I have felt a little like Jacob wrestling with God at the riverbank, pleading for understanding, and waiting for it to come. 

Yesterday it occurred to me that it comes down to two tiny words – “is” and “in.”
Two tiny words, no bigger than a hazelnut. Today’s gospel lesson comes down to two tiny words – “is” and “in.” 

Two tiny words packed with enough meaning to fill the universe. 

In these lessons, we get this promise that the Risen Christ of Easter is here in us. The lessons state this as a present reality and as a reality to come. 

It is and will be. 

We are entering the realm of the mystical, a realm that sometimes feels, well, uncomfortable.
Sometimes the Church talks of the Christ dwelling in us as some kind of supernatural being taking up residence in a vacant corner of our bodies. It can sound like science fiction or wishful thinking.

So what do we mean by this? How do we know Christ is in us? 

We have some teachers who can help us, and many of them are from long ago.

We are blessed to be living in a time when we are reaching back to re-discover the authentic experiences of the holy by our ancestors, and they have much to teach us about experiences of the holy within us. 

One of the most endearing chroniclers of this experience was Julian of Norwich who lived in England in the 14th century. 

She fell ill, and as she hovered near death, the “Spirit of Truth” came to her. 

Julian found the infinite in something tiny: A hazelnut, and it opened wide the universe for her. 

This is what she wrote: “And in this the Lord showed me something small, no bigger than a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand. 

“I thought because of its littleness, it would suddenly have fallen into nothing. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and it always will because God loves it.” 

Julian writes that the thread holding the universe together is God’s love, and that thread is in each of us, connecting us to each other and to all of creation.

And that bring us to another meaning to the word “in.” The Christ of Easter is dwelling not just within us personally but is here with us as a community. 

The Spirit of Truth dwells among us as a gathering of people. 

There is a common thread to all of the stories of Jesus in the four gospels. Everything he does he does in a group. Healing, teaching, sharing a meal – always in a group. 

And Jesus gathers people together at the home of Matthew the tax collector for a meal, and the 5,000 to share the loaves and fishes, and for a “sermon on the Mount.” 

Unlike some of the Hebrew prophets, for example Elijah, Jesus does not have a single disciple. He has twelve. 

And he has us. 

The greatest mark of Christ dwelling among us is not a majestic mountain or a great cathedral. It is in this gathered community itself. 

He is here among us, in the love we show for each other when we are in the most pain need, and in the love we bring beyond our walls to others who are in pain and need – it is in those places where we can catch a glimpse of the Christ who is in us. 

And so I bring you back to the curious letter from Peter about Jesus making a “proclamation to the spirits in prison.” His letter connects to this. 

The Church has long interpreted that phrase as a description of Jesus descending to the dead to free sinners and take them to heaven – going into hell itself to open the gates and rob the devil, the idea of “the harrowing of hell.” 

You can take that literally or figuratively.

Peter’s letter is foundational to the words of the Apostle’s Creed, and so I thought, just to expand our horizons a little, we would recite the Apostles’ Creed today rather the Nicene Creed that we usually do. 

Listen to the poetry of the Apostle’s creed, for small words can bring us beyond theological abstractions. Heaven and hell are not just concepts of another dimension; they are concepts presently real in this world. 

Heaven and hell exist everyday on this earth, and sometimes side-by-side on battlefields and in hospital rooms; in refugee camps and prison camps; and in the devastation wrought by tornadoes in Missouri, a tsunami in Japan or an earthquake in Haiti. 

We do well this Memorial Day weekend to especially remember those who died in battles for our country. For many of them, heaven and hell was only a trench or a roadside bomb away. 

The Spirit of Truth is especially in those places. The Spirit of Truth wants us to see not just sweetness and light, but also the hard places, the painful places, because that is where God dwells, too, and where we are sometimes called to go as people of faith.

This way of the Risen Christ is not always easy. The journey inward will lead us outward, and from tiny moments and small words can come infinitely big horizons and large challenges. But hear again the words of the One who is in us still: 

“Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father and you in me, and I in you. 

“And I will love them.” 

Forever. Amen.

God in my cup of coffee

This past Saturday we were treated at St. Paul's to a talk by Bonnie Thurston about Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941). Bonnie is a scholar and writer about religion, the Bible, theology and mysticism. And she is a good deal more than that. We were blessed to have Bonnie with us on Saturday to lead us into a prayerful place.

Her topic, Evelyn Underhill, was among the most influential theological writers of the 20th century because she wrote about finding the divine in ordinary life and ordinary things.

After her first talk, Bonnie asked us to spend time in silence and try one of Underhill's spiritual exercises. The exercise was this: Focus on a thought. It doesn't matter what the thought is. Focus on the thought and keep all other distractions away. See where it goes.

So I found a quiet place and thought for a moment. I was holding a warm coffee cup, and so began the focus of my thought: my coffee.

This is going to sound very odd, but I spent 30 minutes thinking about the coffee in my cup and how it got there, and I went on a wonderful journey that brought me face-to-face with God's creation, God's compassion and our deepest connections with each other.

An image came into my mind of the mountains in Costa Rica where the coffee beans are grown, and I thought about the farmer who grows those beans. I thought about his hands and how rough they must be from years of tending coffee trees, pruning, cutting, harvesting. I thought about his family, and how they pack the beans in sacks bring those beans to port to be loaded on a ship. I thought about all those who bring these beans to a roaster and how those beans get to a coffee pot to be brewed for my cup.

What became clear to me is how many people are connected through my cup of coffee. We are each connected by the God who creates us and creates these delightful beans we enjoy, brought to us by the labor of human hands. This is not about economic competition or national borders, but about a very human connection through God's creation: coffee.

I cannot but help have compassion based on this connection with all of those who brought me this warm cup of coffee. True compassion is not based on pity, for pity comes from an unequal relationship based on power. True compassion is based on connection -- the deepest connection of all, our connection through our creator and the divine thread that courses through each of us and all of the universe. It is how Julian of Norwich (1314-1462) was able to say that all of the creation -- "all that is made" -- could be found in a hazelnut in the palm of her hand and God's love within it.

"In this vision he showed me a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, and it was round as a ball. I looked at it with the eye of my understanding and thought 'What may this be?' And it was generally answered thus: 'It is all that is made.' I marvelled how it might last, for it seemed it might suddenly have sunk into nothing because of its littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: 'It lasts and ever shall, because God loves it.' "

We sometimes joke in the Episcopal Church that coffee is a sacrament, and that may be truer than we think. God gave us senses to enjoy each other and to enjoy God's creation. God gave us a soul to experience creation and to express our enjoyment. The divine really can be found in ordinary things, even in a cup of coffee.

Painting "Cup of Coffee," by Wayne Thiebaud.

Today: Peace One Day; Prayers for Peace

Today is the United Nations Peace One Day -- a day of ceasefire, a day to pause, a day to pray, a day to stop sniping with bullets and words, as our Associate Rector Ann Willms reminded us Sunday in a hugely powerful sermon.

A year ago we held a day of "Prayers for Peace." I'd like to offer a few of those prayers we offered a year ago. First, though, please watch this three-minute video. I found it hugely moving. The prayers follow underneath the video.

Prayers for Peace

Prayer by Julian of Norwich (1342-1416):

In you, Father all-mighty, we have our preservation and our bliss. In you, Christ, we have our restoring and our saving. You are our mother, brother, and savior. In you, our Lord the Holy Spirit, is marvelous and plenteous grace. You are our clothing; for love you wrap us and embrace us. You are our maker, our lover, our keeper. Teach us to believe that by your grace all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. Amen.

A Prayer for the California State Senate

Here is one of the prayers I wrote for the California State Senate in 2006. I wish it was out-of-date:

Almighty God, we pray that the leaders of all nations will work unceasingly for peace and reconcilliation in the many troubled lands of this earth. We pray especially for peace in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we ask that all who are serving our nation will be protected by your embrace and will return safely home soon. Amen.


A Prayer by Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Lord, open our eyes, that we may see you in our brothers and sisters.

Lord, open our ears, that we may hear the cries of hungry, the cold, the frightened, the oppressed.

Lord, open our hearts, that we may love each other as you love us.

Renew in us your spirit, Lord, free us and make us one. Amen.

A Jewish Shabbat Prayer for Peace

You have given us the power, O God, to bring peace and justice into the world. May we always love peace and pursue it, and love our fellow creatures. Fill Your children with kindness, wisdom, and love. Then shall they learn to live at peace.

Blessed is the Lord, Teacher of Peace.

A Muslim Prayer for Peace

God made this universe from love

For Him to be the Father of.

There cannot be

Another such as He.

What duty more exquiste is

Than loving with a love like His?

A better task

No one could ever ask.

Rahman Baba

Buddhist Prayer

May all beings have happiness, and the causes of happiness; May all be free from sorrow, and the causes of sorrow; May all never be separated from the sacred happiness which is sorrowless; And may live in equanimity, without too much attachment and too much aversion, And live believing in the equality of all that lives.

Shalom, Salaam, Peace

The Saints of Summer: Evelyn Underhill

I cannot let the week pass without mentioning one of the saints of summer, whose day we remembered yesterday: Evelyn Underhill (pronounced "Eve-linn"). Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) came to the faith later in life, first becoming a Roman Catholic and eventually an Anglican. 

Born and educated in England, Underhill is one of the giants of 20th century Christian theology and spirituality. She brought back into the conversation a recognition of mysticism as a valid expression of the religious experience.  She was the first woman to give a series of lectures at Oxford on theology. At her height, she spent the mornings writing and the afternoons serving the poor and providing spiritual direction to those she mentored.

Underhill's most important book was Mysticism, published in 1911, and it is still quite readable, though long (my copy is 519 pages). She wrote at a time when modernism had dismissed religious experience as psychologically irrational, and there was more than a whiff of class prejudice in that. Underhill was able to explain the mystical experience as an exploration of the self and God's presence deep within us and outside us:

To say that God is Infinite is to say that He may be apprehended and described in an infinity of ways. That Circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere, may be approached from every angle with a certainity of being being found. [Mysticism, p. 238]

Without Underhill, we might not have an appreciation of such medieval giants as Julian of Norwich (1342-1416) or Hildegard of Bingen. Underhill's influence extends to this day, and among those she exerted a crucial influence upon is L. William Countryman, the now retired professor of New Testament studies at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific; he, in turn, influenced a generation of scholars and priests with an approach to biblical studies that plumbed the underlying mysticism of the Bible. You may detect Underhill's strong influence in my preaching, for example a recent sermon I did on the Trinity and my sermons in Lent. 

Underhill's approach is to see God in both the light and the darkness, in beauty and ugliness, seeing God as permeating all of existence. She concludes her great book on almost a poetic note:

According to the measure of their strength and of their passion, these, the true lovers of the Absolute, have conformed here and now to the utmost tests of divine sonship, the final demands of life. They have not shrunk from the sufferings of the cross. They have faced the darkness of the tomb. Beauty and agony alike have called them: the time of the singing of birds is come. From the deeps of the dewy garden, Life - new, unquenchable, and ever lovely - comes to meet them with the dawn. [Mysticism, pgs. 45-451]

Giving Thanks

I have much to be thankful for this year: I begin with giving thanks to God for the plenty we enjoy, for my good health and the many adventures and safe travels of this past year. 

I give thanks for the confidence placed in me by the Bishop, people, leaders and staff of St. Paul's Memorial Church in calling me to be their Rector, and most especially for Lori for her support and love in this huge transition. 

I give thanks for my family and my many friends for supporting us, though some have wondered at times at the wisdom of our moving so far. I do miss you greatly. 

I give thanks to the people, leaders and staff of All Souls Parish in Berkeley for their love and support throughout all this. I miss you more than you know. 

I give thanks for our friends at Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento. You are still our home congregation. Thanks for taking us in again this summer. We know we will return again.

I give thanks for the privilege of my work in the California state Senate, and please know, those of you who work there, you are still in my prayers, and you have my thanks for your selfless service. I hope you get a break soon from the onslaught of bad news. 

And let me give thanks to all of you, dear readers, for following my spiritual, theological, semi-political meanderings on this blog and for your comments and encouragement. 

If you can, please join us later today for a Thanksgiving dinner at St. Paul's beginning at 6:15 pm. Lori is cooking the turkeys, I will do some carving, and please bring a side dish. We will also celebrate Thanksgiving at a special Eucharist at 10 a.m. Thursday -- put your turkey in the oven and come join us. I will give a brief homily.

Here are two Thanksgiving blessings to share with you for your grace at the table. The first was sent to me by our dear friend Karen in Tennessee. The second blessing I wrote, based on the famous prayer of Julian of Norwich. I am going to take a few days break from the blog -- so please have a blessed and joyous Thanksgiving.

Here are the blessings:

Grace
by Rafael Jesus Gonzalez

Thanks & blessings be
to the Sun & the Earth
for this bread & this wine,
this fruit, this meat, this salt,
this food;
thanks be & blessing to them
who prepare it, who serve it;
thanks & blessings to them
who share it
(& also the absent & the dead).
Thanks & Blessing to them who bring it
(may they not want),
to them who plant & tend it,
harvest & gather it
(may they not want);
thanks & blessing to them who work
& blessing to them who cannot;
may they not want - for their hunger
sours the wine & robs
the taste from the salt.
Thanks be for the sustenance & strength
for our dance & work of justice, of peace.
Amen.

Giving Thanks
Based on a prayer by Julian of Norwich (1342-1416)

Holy and gracious God, we give thanks for the gift of this gathering; for the food before us; the loving hands that have prepared it; and the blessings we share together. Kindle our hearts and awaken hope, that we may know you always as our companion along the way. Forgive us where we have fallen short with each other and with ourselves; heal our wounds, restore our health, strengthen our souls, and help us to be ever mindful the needs of those near us who have so little. Teach us to believe that by your grace all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. Amen.